Hi.
Welcome to another installment from the Connoisseur of Turds.
This poem was born as an unintentional internal communication. Perhaps directly from the Muse Calliope, herself? There were tears as it unfolded. It’s also a love letter to all writers. We are a strange, tortured bunch. Even those of us who have achieved some mastery/fame/infamy. We make a thing. It goes out into the world. Then we are confronted with the proposition of doing it again. And again.
We are never really sure what will be born, and what its life will become. But we do it anyway. Sometimes with grace, sometimes in folly.
It’s a kind of madness.
And I’m no salesman. You’ll get no hype or cajoling to read my weird works and reckless thoughts. I deal in imagining new worlds and digging up our cursed bones. What comes of it, and who listens is not for me to attempt to control.
It’s a terrible business model, but it’s true.
Wildly wayward,
—C
PS, If all of this is confusing, the turd references especially, you might want to start here:
You Will Always Be
Hey there, lonely station Hello, lost frequency Floating somewhere between Salvation and damnation A writer you will always be This, a deepest depth truth One that requires no proof Though one that you fear is a lie A betrayal that often slips Too easy from your coward lips You’re a womb not a tomb You can’t stop the making While asleep or awake There is no escaping My dear, you’re always creating The muse cares not if you fight her Her gifts come even as you deny her She laughs, stacks the words higher Too bad, she sighs You are a writer My love, what’s subdued isn’t gone My god! Imagine— What will become of your spawn? All those overdue children That you hold back from dawn? Words undead, unread Are words that fester Words unsung, hamstrung Whisper and pester Only horns grow from words unborn In dark flocks they will roost And brood over wings never loosed As their bitter beaks peck And dig a hole in your chest— An aching void where they will nest The curse of fallow shadowlarks Sentries to mark your arrow’s arc Across the late sun’s sky Caw-caw-cawing, heralding The quiet doom of Time With naked tails, they’ll arrive In boiling plague-wave tides Drown your neglected garden-lands Wake demons, keep their flame-eyes lit And place swords in their hardened hands So many, you’ll run out of names For these merciless sons of Cain Then the leashless hoards will sack you Slash, hack, cut and gut you And dine on your remains You know this is what awaits You’ve tasted the darkness Wished the dogs to bark less For from behind the locked gates Some of what’s to come has escaped This, Shadow’s tortured answer To shackles and cruel masters How one becomes the latter How blossoms become cancers How Makers turn Necromancers Yet this shade has a kinder side If you’d temper your raging pride Surrender, close the divide You’ve always been one, not two He’s just the jailed part of you Desperate have always been his pleas To weave the gifts she brings He holds your possibility Wants to show you infinity The potential that lies inside So let them go, let them flow Whether torrent or trickle As blood, as spit, as tears and shit Let your words float out to sea Let them sing, find ears to ring In screams to wake the slumbering Gently, to soothe those suffering Let them fly, to soar and dive Some will live, some will die Still, they’ll know the unending sky My dear, set yourself free Because A writer you will always be
The Bonus Round
I almost died a few times at the threshold of adulthood. Like blood and guts almost died. I consider my “afterlife” a bonus round.
I want to celebrate this by making a habit of sharing things that bring me joy and work from other writers that inform and inspire and shake me. Just short notes and jokes at the end of each piece of writing I post. The cosmos is vast and certainly does not revolve my singular existence or understanding. It teems with delights of wonder/awe, sublime/brutal truths, and circuses of comedy/inanity. I will honor them here.
I proclaim that they shall come in threes. Because three is the magic number.
I have spoken.
#1
I read this today and holy shit.
#TOO
SARAH IS MY SPIRIT ANIMAL
#3 Body Problem
Everything is shit. Everything is dumb. Everything is a scam. We are in grave danger. What are we doing? Why is our government STILL talking out the side of its neck concerning Gaza? SOMEBODY MAKE ME LAUGH.
—FIN—